I'll need to make the decision about homeschooling in a few years. Do you have any studies you can share that support that conclusion?
At face value, it seems more difficult to socialize children than at traditional school with hundreds of daily social interactions from a wide variety of backgrounds, personalities, and teamwork opportunities.
My knowledge of this is rooted in having been involved in the online gifted homeschoolers community. I was briefly Director of Community Life for The Tag Project. http://www.tagfam.org/ So, you can take my word for it as a SME or you can contact Tokenadult and see if he can hook you up.
I do think your assumptions are in error. Good socialization is not about a wide variety of superficial relationships. It is about having positive interactions that teach one what one needs to know. I do know that studies show that kids who go off to boarding school do best if they figure out how to artificially replace the natural family unit with a close group of caring friends. But I don't have links to anything. That is just remembered off the top of my head.
At face value, it seems more difficult to socialize children than at traditional school with hundreds of daily social interactions from a wide variety of backgrounds, personalities, and teamwork opportunities.